Do you find the world a fascinating place? How many worlds are there out there? There are so many amazing things going on in the world, so many facts to learn and so many mysteries to solve. So join my Worlds of Fascination for a articles on everything from the profound to the trivial, the odd to the mysterious.

Wednesday, 16 October 2013

Halloween in the 21st century is a party night of grinning Jack O'Lanterns and kids in costumes going out ‘Trick or
Treating’. It is now very much a
commercial event, with costumes, make-up, Halloween sweets and pumpkins being
sold. But here in Great Britain the origins of Halloween are much older and go
back to ancient times.

As the summer fades into a memory, the harvest has been
brought safely in and the nights grow colder our Celtic ancestors celebrated
the great feast of Samhain. For the
Celts, the year was divided into two seasons which were marked by two great
festivals. Beltane, celebrated on 1st
May ushered in the light season and Samhain marked the beginning of the dark
season on November 1st, the first day of winter. In ancient times, winter was a time of
stillness and waiting, a time where little new work could begin and survival
depended on the success of the summer harvests.
The animals would be brought down from the high pastures either to be
slaughtered and salted for winter use or to be sheltered in stables during the
bad weather, firewood would be chopped and stacked, and crops would be stored
and fruits preserved.

Old English Halloween Festivities

Bonfires were traditionally lit on Samhain and sacrifices and
votive objects were thrown into the flames to ask for blessings, seek answers
to problems or plead for the healing of a sickness. These bonfires were lit, especially in
Scotland, as recently as the early part of the 20th century. People would dance around them, light torches
from them, and run around the fields so that parish boundaries would be
surrounded with a protective circle of light.

The bonfires are still lit in Britain at this time of year,
but now it is mainly on the 5th November to commemorate Guy Fawkes
and his Gunpowder Plot to blow up the English Parliament in 1605. The 5th November is known as
‘Bonfire Night’ and effigies of men known as ‘Guys’ are made and dressed in old
clothes, mainly by children, who then sit with their ‘Guy’ and ask passersby
for a ‘penny for the Guy’. The money is
traditionally used to buy fireworks and the Guy is placed on the bonfire as
it’s centrepiece before it is lit. The
fireworks are then set off while the bonfire is burning. There is also an old
rhyme that was chanted ‘Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder
treason and plot, I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be
forgot...’ Poor Guy Fawkes paid a heavy
price for his crime as he was hung, drawn and quartered, which in those days
was the penalty for treason.

In Ottery St Mary in the county of Devon, there is a custom which dates back to 1688 where on 5th
November men run through the streets of
the town carrying flaming barrels of tar around on their shoulders until they
can no longer bear the heat or the weight.
Another man then takes over, and then another, until the barrel starts
disintegrating and is left to burn itself out.
Earlier in the proceedings there are smaller boy’s and women’s barrels and,
as the evening goes on, the barrels get bigger and heavier. One of the most sought after souvenirs is one
of the metal rings from a burnt out barrel.
The custom started as a pagan cleansing ritual, designed to clear the
town of evil spirits. An alternative theory is that the burning barrels were
used in shops as a form of fumigation.

As Christianity came to Britain, the old customs were not
forgotten or given up. The churches of
this new religion were often built on sites that had been used for many centuries
for pagan ceremonies and worship. The new churches were given new names, new
religious rites were practiced but the old customs were continued. The feast of Samhain was changed to All
Saints Day or Hallowmas and the 2nd November was celebrated as All
Souls Day. All Saints Day honoured all of
the saints in heaven and All Souls Day was a day when prayers were said for all
the souls in Purgatory who were waiting to be forgiven. So the 31st October became known
as All Hallows, Hollantide in Wales and the Isle of Man or what we in modern
times call Halloween.

Jack o'Lantern

In Cornwall the 31st October was known as Allantide
and was connected to a little known Cornish saint called St Allen or
Arlan. One of the customs of Allantide
was the giving of large, highly polished apples. They would be given to family members as
tokens of good luck and teenage girls would put them under their pillow in the
hope that they would dream of the person that they would marry one day. There was also a game played where pieces of
wood were put together to make a cross and then suspended with four candles
attached. The Allan apples would then be
hung under the cross and you would have to try and catch an apple in your
mouth. If you were clumsy or not quick
enough you would be punished by the hot wax from the candles dripping on you.

Indeed apples feature very heavily in Halloween customs and
dunking apples or apple bobbing is a widespread game that is played on this
night. Apples are placed in a large tub
of water and players have to get the apples out using only their teeth and with
their hands behind their backs. A
variation of this is where doughnuts or sticky cakes are suspended from a
string and eaten, again without the use of hands. Another method of divination
to find out who your future spouse was going to be was to peel an apple in one
strip, toss the peel behind your shoulder and see what letter of the alphabet
was formed when it landed. This letter
was believed to be the first letter of their name. It was also believed that if a single girl sat
in front of a mirror in a darkened room on Halloween the face of her future
husband would appear in the mirror; if she were due to die unwed the image of a
skull would appear instead.

A young girl could also guarantee dreaming of any future
romances by the way she arranged her shoes on this special night. If she put them in a ‘T’ shape and then
chanted ‘Hoping this night my true love to see, I place my shoes in the form of
a ‘T’. Apparently the ‘T’ was such a
powerful symbol because it resembled the shape of the hammer of the mighty
Norse god Thor. Another popular
divination game played at Halloween in order to discover the name of a future
husband was to put a line of hazelnuts across a hot grate. Each hazelnut was given the name of one of these
potential suitors and this rhyme was recited ‘If you love me pop and fly; if
you hate me, burn and die.’

The Ancient Celts also believed that on the eve of Samhain
the veil between the world of the living and the dead became thinner and that
the dead could wreak havoc among the living by causing sickness or ruining
crops. Masks and costumes were donned to
mimic the spirits and perhaps to pacify them.
In Scotland young men would blacken their faces and dress in white. The Celts would also put skeletons by their
windows to represent those who had died.
They also believed that the head was the most powerful part of the body
as it contained a person’s wisdom and spirit, so they would carve a lantern
from a swede or a turnip that represented a head and light these on Samhain Eve.

These came to known as Jack –o’-Lanterns after an Irish
legend where a man called Jack the Smith encountered the Devil when he was
drunk and managed to trap him up a tree.
To gain his release the Devil granted Jack’s request that his soul would
never be taken to Hell. When Jack came
to die a few years later, he was denied entry to Heaven because of his previous
drunken lifestyle and so went to the gates of Hell. Due to the promise that the Devil had made,
however, he was not admitted there either but was given a glowing ember to
carry with him in a turnip to light his way and brand him as a soul who
belonged in hell. It is believed that he
forever roams the night, not welcome in either the world of the living or the
world of the dead.

So as you see, there is a lot more to Halloween than a
horror film on the television and too much candy. It is a night that is steeped in tradition
and was a significant night in the spiritual beliefs of our ancient
ancestors. A night perhaps where it
would be better for you to curl up cosily under your duvet, for who knows who
or what you might encounter if you go wandering alone the swirling mists and darkness?

Tuesday, 25 June 2013

Have you ever visited the ghosts at haunted Muncaster Castle? Britain
has a very long and often bloody history, with a landscape that is scattered
with many historic buildings and monuments. So it is not surprising that many
of these historic stately homes, castles and old churches are reputed to be
haunted; reputedly being regularly visited by phantoms from the ghostly realms.

The region known as the Lake District, in the North West corner of
England, has had an especially turbulent past. Close to the Scottish border,
armies have marched through this wild, mountainous area scattered with lakes
since Roman times, to try and subdue the warlike and turbulent Scots north of
the border. It is even said that the Ninth Roman Legion that disappeared in the
second century AD, was lost in the Lake District; their remains still lying out
there somewhere waiting to be found.

Muncaster Castle

Introducing Haunted Muncaster Castle

Of the old stately homes and castles in the area, Muncaster Castle is
possibly the most haunted old building in the whole of the Lakes. Castra is the
old Roman word for fort or military encampment and current archaeological work
in the area of Muncaster Castle is beginning to suggest that there was indeed
once a very large Roman Fort in the vicinity of where the castle now stands.
There are also the fairly extensive ruins of an old Roman Baths just a few
miles away in nearby Ravenglass, so the Romans were definitely living and
working in the area.

Muncaster Castle has been occupied by the same family, the Penningtons,
since around 1208, a tenancy that has currently lasted for over eight hundred
years. Muncaster is a very beautiful castle, which is still in very good
condition. It is open to the public, offering what is called ‘The Muncaster
Experience’. In the castle itself, you can explore the unique Octagonal
Library, the vast dining room and Great Hall. All of the rooms are full of
antiques, paintings, tapestries and interesting historical objects. Outside
there are seventy acres of glorious gardens to wander through, including the
Muncaster Himalayan Gardens, containing many rare species and a large collection
of rhododendrons. The castle grounds are also home to the World Owl Centre,
which houses one of the largest collections of owls and birds of prey in the
world.

The Haunted Tapestry Room

But however attractive and interesting the interior of the castle and
grounds are, it is Muncaster Castle’s ghostly visitors that fascinate us the
most. Paranormal investigators and scientists have been investigating the
ghostly goings-on in and around the castle since 1992 without being able to
come up with any rational explanation for the hauntings. These include Jason
Braithwaite of Birmingham University who is a neuroscientist and cognitive
psychologist who believes that there are ‘strange and anomalous magnetic
fields’ in the areas of the castle where the hauntings are reputed to take
place. One of his theories is that these strange magnetic fields might affect
the brain functions of certain people, such as those who suffer from epilepsy
and migraines, which causes them to experience these apparently paranormal
phenomena when they are within range of the magnetic field.

Muncaster Castle

One of the most famous haunted rooms at Muncaster Castle is the infamous
Tapestry room. It was discovered that the Tapestry Room had previously been used
as a children’s nursery and visitors staying overnight report that they have
heard children crying. One theory is that the crying child is the ghost of
Margaret Susan Pennington who died at a young age of screaming fits in the
nineteenth century. The walls of the Tapestry Room are adorned with sombre
paintings and there is an iron fire dog in the shape of the devil in the
fireplace. Moreover, the mattress of the bed in the Tapestry Room lies on a
sheet of chain mail. Guests staying the night in the room have also heard a
woman singing, disembodied ghostly footsteps, doors swinging open of their own
volition and the feeling of hands touching them in the night or even throwing
them from the bed.

Tom Fool

Probably the most famous ghost of Muncaster Castle is that of Tom Fool,
who was a sixteenth century jester. His real name was Tom Skelton and he was
reputedly the last court jester in Britain and a friend of William Shakespeare.
His ghost has a reputation for playing jokes on people he takes a dislike to or
that he believes are threatening the Pennington family. Tom Fool also had a
very dark side, as it is said that he murdered an apprentice carpenter by
hacking off his head while he was asleep. He had been bribed into committing
this dastardly act by Lord Ferdinand Hoddleston of Millom Castle. Apparently
the hapless apprentice had committed the crime of falling in love with Sir Alan
Pennington's daughter Helwise, who was Sir Ferdinand's promised bride and the
lovers had enjoyed a secret tryst at the May Day Fair. The grief stricken woman
retired to a convent and the ghost of her poor apprentice lover is now said to walk
the halls of the castle at night with his severed head tucked neatly under his
arm. This is not the only murder that Tom Skelton has said to have been
involved in. It is believed that when travellers asked him the best way to get
to London, he would point them in the direction of the treacherous quick sands
of the area where they perished, rather than to the relevant ford over the
river. Tom Skelton died in or around 1600 and Muncaster Castle has a special
day every year called ‘Tom Fool’s Day’ in his memory. You can still see his portrait
hanging on the castle’s walls.

The White Lady

Another of Muncaster Castle’s famous ghosts is The Muncaster Boggle or
White Lady. This apparition is thought to be the ghost of a young woman called
Mary Bragg who was murdered in 1805. There seem to be several versions of the
story of her murder in existence. One was that she had been a young local girl
who was prone to swearing, who was hanged from the castle’s main gate by a
group of drunken men after they had kidnapped her for a joke. In another version
of the story, she was a housekeeper at the castle and unfortunately fell in
love with a footman who was also greatly fancied by one of the housemaids. It
is claimed that one night two men called at the castle saying that Mary’s lover
was ill and that they would take her to see him. Instead of taking her to her
lover, they took her to a lonely road and killed her. Her body wasn’t found for
some weeks, eventually being found floating in a badly decomposed state in the
Esk River. It is said that her head had been partially eaten by eels. It is
also claimed that a tree near to where Mary met her fate started to bleed when
it was cut down. Her lonely wraith haunts the grounds and roads around
Muncaster, so be careful of who you may meet if you dare to walk those roads
after dark.

Muncaster Castle also boasts a royal ghost. King Henry VI was said to
have hidden here at the time of the War of the Roses after the Lancastrian
defeat at the battle of Hexham in 1464, and that his ghost still walks through
the shadowy passages and rooms at night. To show his gratitude to Sir John
Pennington for giving him refuge, Henry VI gave him an elaborate enamelled
drinking bowl in white and gold known as the 'Luck of Muncaster'. The defeated
Lancastrian monarch blessed the bowl and promised that the Pennington family
would prosper as long as it remained unbroken. There is also a ghostly lion
that is said to roam the castle and grounds, and is heard growling gently at
dusk. This lion was supposedly shot by the last Lord Muncaster in Kenya and the
lion’s skull is still kept in the castle.

So if you want to experience the creepy atmosphere and haunting of
Muncaster Castle for yourself, you can book a ‘ghost sit’ for up to six people
to stay overnight in the truly spooky Tapestry Room. Other events and conferences
are often held so hopefully you will get the chance to investigate and,
experience its paranormal activity for yourself.

Thursday, 14 February 2013

Are you a tree lover? Before there were so many people,
before there was an industrial revolution and mass farming, the British Isles
and most of Europe was covered with trees. Vast, dense forests covered hundreds
of square miles and our ancient ancestors venerated some of these trees as
gods, believed some of them could be used to heal their bodies and even that
some of them were unlucky or evil and had to be appeased. Even in our modern world, many of us find the
idea of venturing alone into a deep, dark wood daunting and many horror films
and books, such as ‘The Blair Witch Project’, centre around something dark and
terrifying lurking in the shadows deep in the heart of the forest. And who didn't listen to the fairy tale of
‘Hansel and Gretel’ when they were young, where the two little children laid a
trail of breadcrumbs through the woods to find their way home again? So it is
not perhaps surprising that there are many myths and superstitions about trees
that have been passed down from our distant pagan past. And when Christianity arrived and started
spreading across Europe, the ancient beliefs about trees were not forgotten,
but were incorporated into the new religion’s beliefs, and many trees came to
be regarded as Christian symbols and had new myths attached to them.

Party Tree at Hobbiton, New Zealand

In Britain before the coming of Christ, the gods, spirits
and elements were worshipped in groves of sacred trees by the Druids. The three most sacred trees were thought to
be the oak, the ash and thorn, and this triad was attributed with great powers
and magical properties. It was thought that guardian spirits inhabited the
trees, and our saying ‘touch wood’ comes from the old custom of gently touching
a tree to show your respect for the spirit that dwelt within in it and to ask
for healing, blessings and favours. In
ancient Greece, there was thought to be a type of nymph called a Hamadryad that
was eternally bonded to their own tree.
If that tree was felled or destroyed, the tree’s resident Hamadryad was
also thought to die, so the Greek gods severely punished any mere mortal who
damaged a sacred tree.

Because they are very long-lived, trees were also regarded
as a symbol of immortality, fertility and the never ending cycle of the
seasons. Their longevity was a promise to our ancestors that life always
renewed itself, and they would have known that many generations of their people
would have met and worshipped under the shady branches of the same tree. This
gave these leafy, shaded spaces a numinous quality, which allowed the echoes of
the past to ripple into the present, providing continuity; a thread that bound
them both to their ancestors and to the generations to come, so that wisdom and
knowledge would never be lost. Trees were also an important source of fuel for
their fires, building materials for their homes and provided fruit and berries
for both food and medicine. When Christianity arrived in Europe, it seamlessly
absorbed much of the mythology and the beliefs that surrounded pagan tree worship
and turned it into Christian stories and legends. Indeed, the very first story of this new
religion involves the first man and woman, Adam and Eve plucking a forbidden apple
from the Tree of Knowledge and the redeemer Jesus Christ being sacrificially
slain on a cross made of wood.

So what are some of the myths and superstitions associated
with certain trees?

Oak Trees

Oak trees were probably the most important, magical tree in
European pagan mythology. They were worshipped
in sacred groves by the Druids and individual oaks were venerated. As they can make
wailing, moaning noises when they are cut into or felled, they were thought to
have human traits. Oaks possessed powerful magic that could cure you of your
toothache if you drove a nail into the trunk, could stop you from ageing if you
carried an acorn in your pocket and offered you protection from lightning
strikes. Oak was associated with Zeus
and Thor, the powerful pagan male gods of storms and lightning, and, because of
their shape, were regarded as symbols of male virility and power. It is a good thing that oak trees offered
protection from lightning, as they are more liable than other trees to be
struck, partly because they are often the tallest object in the immediate
landscape, but also because oak wood has low resistance to electricity. But being
struck by lightning was also important to the oak tree, as sacred mistletoe was
thought to have been left in the branches during lightning strikes. Oak leaves
were used as symbols of power, conquest and military expertise, and Roman
military leaders used to wear crowns woven from oak leaves during their victory
parades.

Lone Tree in British Park

There are many famous, historic oaks in Britain that have
had their own stories and legends woven around them. Perhaps the most famous of them is the oak
tree that stands in the grounds of Boscobel House in Staffordshire, where in
1651 the future King Charles II hid after the Battle of Worcester to escape
from Oliver Cromwell’s men. The day of
his restoration to the throne, 29th May, has ever since been
celebrated with feasting, singing and dancing as ‘Royal Oak Day’ or ‘Oak Apple
Day’. It was traditional on this day to
pin oak leaves or oak apples to your clothes and if you saw someone who was not
wearing any then you were allowed to physically punish them with a sly pinch,
slap or kick. There is also a legend that Elizabeth I first heard about the
death of her sister Queen Mary and her accession to the throne while she was standing under the
oak that stands in the grounds of Hatfield House, which has ever since been
called The Queen Elizabeth Oak.

Another famous oak stands in Windsor Great Park, where legend
has it that one of the keepers, known as Herne the Hunter, hung himself from
one of the branches. Herne had rescued
Richard II from being gored by a white hart, but sustained mortal wounds while
he was doing it. He was healed by having
the white hart’s antlers attached to his head by a mysterious stranger called
Philip Urswick. Unbeknownst to him Urswick had struck a deal with the other
keepers in Windsor Great Park, and after he healed Herne lost his
position. In desperation he hung himself
from a large branch of the oak, where his swinging, antlered corpse was spotted
by a pedlar. By the time the pedlar had
returned with the other keepers, Herne’s body had disappeared and that night
the great oak tree was struck by lightning.
When the keepers returned to the oak at midnight they were confronted by
Herne’s ghost who compelled them to ride with him forever in his Wild Hunt.

Ash

Ash is another tree that was once thought to possess magical
powers. If a child was suffering from a hernia or rickets, it would be taken
before the sun rose to be passed naked through a split in the trunk of an ash
tree. The split would then be bound back together, sealed with clay and left to
heal. As the trunk healed, the child
would miraculously recover from its ailment.
Ash was also used to heal lame animals by carving a hole into the trunk
and placing a live shrew inside it. The
hole would be sealed over and when the shrew died and the ash healed, the lame
animal would come sound again. Ash
faggots were traditionally burned in hearths at Christmas. They would be bound together with green
twigs, and as the ash burned you could make a wish every time one of the twig
bindings snapped open. The single girls
of the household would each choose one of the twig bindings, and if you had
chosen the first one that burst open in the flames then you would be the first
of the girls to get married.

Ash trees were an important part of Norse myths, because
Yggdrasil the World Tree was a mighty ash that grew in the centre of everything
and spread out into everything, as its roots grew down into the dark mysteries
of the underworld, its branches shaded every part of the world, and its trunk
grew so tall that it penetrated heaven itself. Yggdrasil was the sacred place
where the Norse gods would come to sit in council and where Odin hung himself
in sacrifice, losing an eye when the ravens pecked it out. Hanging from a sacred tree is a continuing
theme in tree mythology and one that carries on into Christian belief, as Jesus
was nailed and hung from a tree to make his ultimate sacrifice for the sake of
humanity, enabling their redemption.
This symbolism is carried on into the modern tarot where the Hanged Man
card drawn in a reading suggests sacrifice, limitations and a time of waiting.

British Trees in the Snow

Yggdrasil was also associated with nurturing and abundance,
as a miraculous goat that grazed at the foot of the trunk produced mead from
its udder rather than milk, and this potent alcoholic beverage was served at
the great feasts held by the gods in their Great Hall. Mead is made from honey and water, and this
association with the ash tree may have come from the fact that some species of
ash found in the mountains of Greece and in Northern Europe ooze a sticky,
sweet substance that is a bit like honey.
Yggdrasil was also said to rain honey down from the skies for the
sustenance of mankind below, so this miraculous ash could truly claim to be the
tree of life.

Mountain ash is also known by the name rowan and is commonly
found growing in Northern England, Scotland and Wales. It is another tree that
offers you great protection for your household and can protect you and your family
from witchcraft and evil spirits. It was used to protect and help farm
livestock, as milkmaids used to tie rowan twigs to their buckets so that the
milk would not sour and wreaths woven from rowan twigs were put around pig’s
necks to fatten them up faster. Mares and cows would be fed rowan berries while
they were giving birth, so that their labour would progress smoothly and the
baby animal be born alive and healthy.

Hawthorn

Hawthorn with its glorious white blossom is the tree that is
associated with the return of the sun after the winter and the month of May, so
much so that it is also known as the May tree.
The traditional maypoles that were set up on village greens to help
celebrate the first day of May were often made from hawthorn wood and it was
also used to make the garland that was used to crown the chosen ‘Green Man’ of
that summer. In pagan times hawthorn was
very much associated with fertility, passionate love and marriage. But the rise of Christianity saw the
symbolism change as the white colour of the flowers were linked to purity and
the Virgin Mary, to whom the month of May was dedicated. Probably the most famous thorn tree in Britain
is the ancient one that grows in the Somerset town of Glastonbury. The Glastonbury Thorn was said to have sprung
from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea after he stuck it in the ground and it only
flowers once in May and once during the Christmas season. Joseph of Arimathea
was said to have carried the Holy Grail with him as he travelled, and hid it
away somewhere in the British Isles where it still lays waiting to be
discovered. Tradition also has it that the crown of thorns that was placed on
Jesus’ head was made from hawthorn wood.

Hawthorn could also be used to protect your home from
ghosts, witches and storms, by having the branches placed across the rafters by
a person who was not a member of your immediate family. Bundles of hawthorn twigs were also hung
outside cowsheds to ensure that the cows carried on giving an abundant supply
of milk. However, it was thought to be very unlucky to bring hawthorn into the
house, and if you decorated the interior of your house with it you could expect
illness and death to swiftly follow. This could be because during medieval
times people thought that hawthorn blossom smelled like London during the time
of the Black Death. In fact, May flowers
do contain a compound called trimethylamine, which is one of the chemicals that
is formed in decomposing animal flesh, so would have given off a whiff of
rotting bodies which would not been appreciated in someone’s parlour.

Yew Trees

Ancient yew trees can be found growing in many of the
churchyards of rural Britain. They are a very long living species and can live
for up to 1,000 years. In fact, the Fortingall Yew that grows in the churchyard
at Fortingall in Scotland is thought to be between 2,000 and 5,000 years old.
The trunk of the tree has split off into different offshoots over the years, so
the true age cannot be determined by examining the rings within the trunk. Local legend has it that Pontius Pilate, the
Roman Governor that handed Jesus over to be crucified, once played under the
Fortingall Yew as a child and archaeologists think that it used to be the focal
point of a local Iron Age cult.

Because of their extreme longevity, it is therefore perhaps not
surprising that yew trees symbolized immortality for our pagan forebears and
that many Christian churches came to be built where sacred groves of yew used
to stand. The yew also has what would
have been viewed as miraculous powers of regeneration, as when one of the
branches droops so low that it hits the earth, that branch can grow roots and
start forming new trunks. Because of this link to a promised eternal life, in
medieval times they used to line newly dug graves with yew branches to help
guarantee the resurrection of the recently deceased soul. Yew is also one of the woods that
traditionally have been thought to have been used to make the cross that Jesus
was crucified on. This link with death may have come about as yew is also
poisonous, and can easily kill a man if ingested in sufficient quantity. The
yew was also believed to be able to protect churchyards from storms that had
been conjured up by angry, vengeful witches.
In the middle ages, yew was a favoured wood for making long bows; that
ultimate weapon of the fighting man that was so vital to the English for
gaining victory in battles such as Agincourt in October 1415. At that time archery practice with the
longbow was enforced by law, and each man in England who was of an age to fight
was compelled to spend time practising his technique and skills until they were
deadly accurate.

British Woodland

There were myths and superstitions surrounding practically
every species of tree and they varied from culture to culture, even from
village to village. It used to be thought
that sawing up willow was very unlucky, so even very poor folk would not cut
down the branches to use as firewood. But willow could also be very lucky if
someone gave you a gift of willow branches on a morning in May. The poplar,
also called the aspen, sometimes looks like it is shivering in the breeze. This was thought to be because its wood had
been used to make the cross for the crucifixion and that the poplar was so
traumatised by this that it still shakes in horror. People used to believe that
if they suffered from tremors or shivering while they were ill, that attaching
a lock of their hair to a poplar and chanting an incantation could cure them.

The causes of disease were very poorly understood in years
gone by, so folk thought that if they burned a fire of juniper wood during a
plague epidemic that the resulting smoke would drive away the demons that were
causing the terrible disease. If you dreamed of juniper berries you could
expect the birth of a first male child, but dreaming of the juniper tree was a
harbinger of bad luck. The elder was another tree that was a candidate for
providing the wood that the cross of Jesus had been made from, so it also
brought bad luck if it was brought into the house. Its unfortunate reputation was further
bolstered by another tradition that Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus at the
Last Supper leading him to be universally reviled, had hung himself from an
elder tree branch. Elder trees were also dangerous to approach during the hours
of darkness, as witches gathered under them and if they caught you, then you
could expect no mercy.

Winter Trees in Oxford

So these are just a few of the myths and superstitions that
are associated with trees. Across all cultures and in many different regions
there are common themes of fertility, virility, the cycle of the seasons,
protection, and great leaders sacrificing themselves by hanging themselves from
their boughs to bring healing and renewal to their people. Trees are companionable, shady places to sit
and dream under on a hot, sunny day, so the next time that you are sitting
propped up against the trunk of your favourite tree, why not say hello to the
spirit that lives there and give thanks to the tree for the healing and
protection it gives you.

Sunday, 3 February 2013

Luckily for us salt is one of the most common minerals on
Earth and is formed mainly from sodium chloride. It is a crystalline solid and
is white, light grey or pale pink in colour. It is an essential part of the
diet for all humans and animals, as the sodium and chloride ions are necessary
for our survival.

Sea Salt

It plays an important part in the regulation of the fluid
balance of the body. Salt cravings can
be caused by a deficiency of sodium chloride or by a lack of other trace
minerals. What we use on our tables
today is produced in several different forms, in unrefined forms like sea salt
or refined like table and iodized salt.
It is also an important preservative and is used extensively to preserve
food. The flavour is one of the basic
tastes, making it one of the oldest and most commonly used seasoning. In the Western world traditionally there are
four taste sensations: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. We lose salt from our bodies through sweating
and excretion, so we constantly need to replace what we lose, especially in
very hot weather.

Health Problems Associated with Salt

However vital salt is to us, having too much in your diet
can cause you to experience health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart
disease and an increased risk of stroke.
Having too much in your diet can also cause water retention. Fully grown
adults should eat no more than 6g a day, which is approximately a teaspoonful.
And in the UK alone, reducing the average daily intake by adults could prevent
around 17500 premature deaths a year. Children
and babies need a lot less than this. A
baby only needs less than 1g a day up until it is around a year old. Breast milk and infant formula contain the
right levels, but it is important not to add it to baby’s food when they start
eating solids and to not give them processed foods that are not specifically
made for infants. Another benefit of reducing your salt intake is that you
might begin to notice a broader range of flavours in your food.

Much of what we consume is hidden in the food that we eat,
so it is not just the salt that we add to our food that is the problem. Foods that have a high salt content are
processed foods, bread, cereals, salty snacks and foods that have been canned
in brine or preserved in salt. They
should be avoided or cut down on where possible and replaced with fresh,
home-cooked meals.

Iodine is also commonly added to salt, especially in inland
areas where there is little iodine in the soil for the crops to absorb. A lack of iodine in the diet can lead to
problems with the thyroid gland in the neck known as goitre. In the United Kingdom this was commonly known
as ‘Derbyshire Neck’ as it was a condition particularly prevalent among the
poorer sections of society in Derbyshire, particularly young women of child bearing
age, a century or so ago.

History of Salt

It is believed that we first started adding it to our food
when our early ancestors started cultivating crops in about 10,000 BC and
started to eat less meat. Earlier,
prehistoric hunter gatherers had derived all the sodium that they needed from
the large amounts of meat and fish that they ate. They also discovered that you could use it to
preserve food, so that they could store it at times when food was plentiful to
be used when the food supplies were running low.

Early civilisations learned that they could obtain it from
dried out lakes, by boiling or evaporating sea water or mining in areas where
solid salt forms in the ground. However,
supplies remained scarce until modern times and for most of recorded history it
was regarded as a rare and valuable commodity, due to the expense of extracting
it and then conveying it overland or by sea.
In Iran in 2005 a group of salt mummies were discovered in ancient salt
mines. These were bodies of workers who
had perished in the mines around 1700 years ago and whose bodies had been
naturally preserved by the salt.

Taxes on salt were introduced by the ancient Chinese and
there were times when the revenues raised made up half of the Chinese Empire’s
tax revenues. The Great Wall of China
would probably never have been built without this tax! The Romans also taxed it and one of the
famous Roman roads the ‘Via Salaria’ or salt road was built to transport it. The infamous French salt tax known as the
‘Gabelle’ was hugely unpopular with the French people. It was first imposed in 1286 by King Philip
IV and was not repealed until 1790.
There was also a long history of taxing it in India and the huge
increase of this tax by the British which led to it becoming unaffordable for a
lot of Indians was one of the issues that flared up and helped pave the way to
Indian Independence.

It is said that in ancient times, when an enemy was
conquered, the victorious army would sow it into their fields so that they
would not be able to grow their crops.
The most well known example is the Romans ploughing it into the soil
after they conquered Carthage in 146 BC, although this is disputed as it is not
mentioned in ancient texts but is mentioned by the 19th century
German historian Ferdinand Gregorovius.

We still commonly use the term ‘above the salt’, which originated
in the Middle Ages when a salt cellar was placed on the dining table and the
important people of the household were seated above it and the lesser folk and
servants were seated on the other side.
The fact that it was expensive was shown by the fact that these salt
cellars in prosperous households were often quite large, very ornate and made
of precious metals. Other phrases that
we still use are ‘salt of the earth’ denoting a person who is very worthy which
reflects how precious it used to be. “Taken with a pinch of salt’ means that
what has been said should not be taken too seriously and ‘worth one’s salt’ harks
back to the custom of Roman Legionnaires receiving some of their wages in the
form of salt.

Spilling salt is still thought to signify bad luck and that
it can only be countered by tossing some of what you have spilled over your
left shoulder. It has to be the left
shoulder, because that is where the devil sits. Toss it over your right
shoulder and you will be throwing it into the eyes of your guardian angel. This belief may have come from the story that
Judas overturned a salt cellar at the Last Supper and spilling some of the
precious condiment over the table. It also used to be believed that salt, along
with earth and fire could protect you from demons. It used to be placed in baby’s cots to keep
them safe and a plate of salt would be placed on the breast of someone who had
just died to prevent the devil from taking their soul.

Dangers of Salt to the Environment

Too much is toxic to many plants and soil that contains too
much salt is not suitable for agriculture and tends to be very
unproductive. Natural salt lakes tend to
be very dry and arid areas. Worryingly,
salt sterilizing the soil in regions that are normally fertile is beginning to
be a major environmental and economic issue in parts of the world. In some parts of Australia, soil salinization
is occurring in some regions partly due to sea salt being brought inland by
wind and flooding and then being brought to the surface by modern farming
practices such as irrigation and clearing the land. The thin top-soil layers have become far too
salty for successful agriculture and it is estimated that more than 2.5 million
hectares of land has become unusable because of these modern farming practices

Salt Lake, Northern Territory Australia

Off The Beaten Salt Track

Finally,
you would normally feel safe from a shark attack swimming in the fresh water of
a river, right? Sharks live in the salty
waters of the oceans, don’t they? Wrong! Bull sharks are considered by experts
to be one of the three species of shark most likely to be aggressive to humans,
along with great whites and tiger sharks.
They generally live in shallow waters near the coast in tropical
regions, but they are among the only sharks that can survive in brackish and
fresh water. They have been spotted
thousands of miles up the Amazon River, been caught 900 miles up the
Mississippi River and leap the river rapids in Nicaragua to reach Lake
Nicaragua which is inland. So that river
you like to have a swim in might not be so safe at all!Sea Salt Image PinPin Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 Generic

Saturday, 19 January 2013

All aboard, all aboard!
Please take your seats and make yourselves comfortable as we take an
incredible journey around some of he key sites and locations that feature in
the Greek myths. On this very special
tour, not only will you get to relax and enjoy some amazing scenery as we
travel through the Greek countryside, but you will also have some exclusive
introductions to the gods, goddesses and heroes who played the crucial parts in
these ancient legends. So please make
sure that you have your seat belts buckled and your tables in the upright
position and we will travel back over two thousand years to our first
destination.

Sparta

And see how fast we have arrived out our very first
destination, Ancient Sparta. During the
classical period Greece was mainly comprised of independent city states, but
what made Sparta stand out from the rest is that it was the only one that had a
full time standing army and the Spartans gloried in war and physical
fitness. Young boys were sent off to the
army barracks for training at the age of seven and even the little girls were
made to participate in sport and feats of physical endurance so that they could
go on to have many healthy Spartan children when they grew up. In fact, in our day and age the term ‘spartan’ has come
to mean harsh, austere conditions and
living a life with few luxuries or comforts.
The Spartan army was a disciplined, awesome fighting machine and was
regarded with respect and fear throughout the classical world. Their most famous military engagement was the
stand they took at Thermopylae in 480 BC.
Along with a small force of Thebans and Thespians, they stood their
ground against a much larger army of invading Persians, inflicting a huge
amount of casualties before they were finally overcome.

Ancient Theatre, Sparta

The founding of Sparta came about after the great god Zeus,
King of Olympus indulged in one of his favourite pastimes and pursued a local
nymph called Taygete, the result of which was a son called Lacedaemon. When he grew to manhood he founded the city
of Sparta and named it after his wife.
Probably the most famous citizen to have ever been born in Sparta was
the legendary beauty Helen of Troy. The
girl that was destined to grow into ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’
was another of the prolific progeny of the god Zeus, this time pursing the wife
of the Spartan King Tyndareus, who was called Leda. Now Greek myths tend to have several
versions, but it was said that as Zeus pursued Leda she turned into a
swan. After he had made her succumb to
him, she laid an egg out of which emerged the beautiful Helen. In some versions of this myth there were two
eggs laid, one of which produced Helen and Clytemnestra and the other the
heavenly twins Castor and Pollux. One dark twin and one light twin emerging
from each egg.

Garden of the
Hesperides

Now we have to wave goodbye to the beautiful Helen of Troy
and the mountains of Sparta, although we will meet her again later on in our
journey. It is time to take some
refreshment and relax in the beautiful Garden of the Hesperides. Now you might be tempted to pluck one of the
exquisite golden apples growing on the many apple trees in the grove, but we
would advise you against this and would encourage you to stick with the packed lunch
that we have provided for your delectation.
Although the garden is tended by the beautiful nymphs, the Hesperides,
the golden apples which confer immortality on those that eat from them, are
guarded jealously by a fearsome dragon with a hundred heads called Ladon.
Please note that your travel insurance does not cover any injuries
sustained while trying to pat the dragon.

Garden of the Hesperides

The garden is owned by Zeus’s long suffering wife Hera, and
we are hoping that she will pop in while we are there to have a cup of teas
with us and tell us some more about this fantastic garden and the problems that
she is always having with her husband.
One of the most famous stories is of the time when one of the golden
apples was stolen and secreted out of the sacred grove. It was taken by the goddess of discord, Eris,
who then had engraved on it ‘for the fairest’.
Now the unpleasant events that were to follow the stealing of the golden
apple, including the Trojan Wars, were all down to Eris’s nose being put out of
joint because she had not been invited to the wedding of Peleus and
Thetis. She secretly snuck into the
wedding reception and rolled the engraved golden apple in amongst the
revellers. On reading the inscription,
three of the most powerful goddesses instantly claimed it as theirs. A un-deity like fracas broke out which had to
be mediated by the all powerful Zeus, who decided that a handsome youth called
Paris, who was a prince of Troy, would
get to choose who was the most beautiful goddess. The three contenders immediately got their
kit off, had a quick bathe in the Spring of Ida and proceeded to bribe the
judge just in case he was not impressed enough by their naked beauty. Athena offered to teach him military skills
and guarantee him prowess in war, Hera offered the young prince the chance to
rule all of Europe and Asia, and the goddess of love Aphrodite tempted him with
the possession of the most beautiful woman in the world. Being a typical man, Paris rejected the more practical
offers of Athena and Hera, and tossed the golden apple to Aphrodite, bagging
for himself the pulchritudinous Helen of Troy (told you we would meet her
again!) in the process. Now there were a
few little snags that he hadn’t taken into consideration when he made his
choice, such as the fact that the gorgeous Helen was already married to King
Menelaus and that it is never a good idea to get on the wrong side of two
important goddesses. The Judgement of Paris was to prove another of the steps
on the way to the Trojan War.

The Labyrinth of
Crete

Now I am very aware that the tour so far has been a bit
short on visitor attractions, so we are going to get some sea air and explore
the legendary Labyrinth on the island of Crete.
The price of admission was included in the tour price and we will give
you several hours to see if you can find your way into the centre and then get
out again. We have only lost seven
tourists in the last three seasons, so we are very proud of our record. The mythical Labyrinth was constructed for
King Minos by Daedalus to house the half-bull and half-human monster that was
the Minotaur. Legend has it that the
god of the seas, Poseidon, gave Minos a white bull to sacrifice. But Minos
decided in his infinite wisdom to keep the white bull for himself, so to teach
him a lesson Poseidon, with a little help from Aphrodite, fixed it so that
Minos’s wife fell into lust with the white bull and several months later gave birth to the Minotaur. Now please note that the Labyrinth was built
to a very complicated design and apparently even Daedalus had trouble finding
his way out.

Silver Coin from Knossos showing the Labyrinth

Now to keep the Minotaur fed and watered, Minos demanded a
tribute of seven brave young men and seven beauteous young girls every seven years
from the city state of Athens. This was
so that Athens could pay a suitably high price for assassinating King Minos’s
eldest son Androgeus some years previously.
The Greek hero Theseus decided that enough was enough and took over from
one of the doomed youths so that he could go and slay the monster. Although he had been divested of all his
weapons when he sailed for Crete he had managed to secrete his sword under his
tunic, and fortunately for the dashing hero Minos’s daughter Ariadne slipped
him a ball of twine before he was shoved into the Labyrinth. He tied the end of the twine to the door post and
managed to find his way through the dark to its very centre, where the Minotaur
lay sleeping. A tremendous fight ensued
and Theseus eventually cut off the monster’s head. He followed the twine back out into the
Cretan sunshine and took off with the Athenian youngsters that he had saved and
Ariadne and her sister Phaedra. However,
to show his gratitude to the Cretan princess he left Ariadne asleep on the
beach on the island of Naxos one morning and then he forgot to change the sails
of the ship to the white ones from the black ones as they approached Athens to
signal that the youths were safe, so the poor old king committed suicide out of
grief.

Cruise on the Argo

Now we have to leave the beautiful island of Crete behind us
as we embark on the Argo for a cruise through the Mediterranean to the Black
Sea with Jason and the Argonauts. We are
glad that in Crete you have had the chance to swim in Homer’s ‘wine dark sea’,
but there will be many further opportunities for sea bathing as our cruise
stops at the island of Lemnos, then
Samothrace, and then through the Bosphorous into the Black Sea. On this cruise
you can join Jason and his Argonauts in their quest for the fabled Golden
Fleece that Jason needs to find in order to claim his kingdom. Now the
Argonauts are a pretty VIP bunch, so you will be priviledged to rub shoulders
with the likes of the son of Zeus, Pollux, the Greek hero Perseus who rescued the
fair Andromeda from the sea serpent, and chat with the legendary Hercules,
another son of Zeus, about his twelve labours.
When the tour reaches the city of Aria in Colchis you will be given the
chance to pan for gold using a sheep’s fleece, and will be given a souvenir
grain of gold set in a tasteful plastic frame to take home with you as a
treasured memory of your trip.

Troy

The next stop is one of the highlights of the tour as we
travel overland by luxury coach to the fabulous city of Troy on the coast of
Turkey. Here you can choose which side
you would rather be on, and join the siege of the city either on the side of
the Greeks or the Trojans. The fair
Helen enters our story once more, as to gain possession of the most beautiful
woman in the world, our hero Prince Paris had to steal her away from her
husband King Menelaus’s palace at Mycenae.
With his pride and his honour severely dented, King Menelaus raised an
army stuffed full of Greek heroes to go and reclaim his wife. As it was a long and tiring siege that lasted
ten years, there will be optional tours of Achilles’ tent, lessons in how to
deliver prophecies that won’t be believed with Cassandra, and workshops on how
to build a Trojan horse. After a decade,
you will be really looking forward to the grand finale when the great wooden
horse is rolled through the gates of Troy and the Greek warriors leap out and
fall upon the unsuspecting Trojans. We
have to tell you, however, that at this stage of the tour your travel insurance
will not cover you if you accidentally get run through with a sword or are hit
by an arrow through the heart. And to
show that all men are fools for love, when Menelaus reclaimed his wife after
the death of Paris he fully intended to have her killed for her betrayal, but
she somehow she managed to charm him all over again and he put off killing her
until an unspecified later date.

Hades

Now we had hoped to round off this tour with a very special,
VIP trip to visit the gods on Mount Olympus. We even had Ares, Apollo, Hermes
and Artemis lined up to give you exclusive audiences and photo opportunities
with the deities. However, all is not lost
as the god of the underworld Pluto and his gorgeous young wife Persephone have
invited us to visit with them in Hades.
You will get to enter Hades through the cavern at Avernus, and you will
then be given a souvenir coin to put under your tongue to pay the ferryman
Charon for the crossing of the river Acheron.
On the far side of the river you will be given a few minutes for a photo
opportunity with the three headed guard dog Cerberus and then you will be given
plenty of free time to chat with the shades of the dead and find out what the
underworld is really like. For a small
extra fee, you can enjoy the whole abduction by Pluto experience, where we will
leave you in a grassy meadow plucking flowers, and the dark lord of the
underworld will spring out of the earth in his chariot and drag you down into
Hades and feed you pomegranates. Now
unless your name is Orpheus, Theseus or Hercules, we have some unfortunate news
for you. Hades, like the Hotel
California in the song by the Eagles, is somewhere you can check in but you can
never leave, so make sure that you have packed enough for an extended stay.

We would like to thank you for joining us on our
exciting trip around Greek mythology and we would be very grateful if you could
fill in our feedback forms and hand them in to your representative. As you are now a permanent resident of Hades,
we have taken all the necessary steps to inform your relatives and wind up your
earthly affairs. If you ever manage to
find a Greek hero who is willing to bust you out from the underworld, we would
be very happy if you choose to travel with us again. Have a nice day and mind
how you go.

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About Me

Writer, blogger and hypnotherapist.
Author of the Aten Sequence Books - science fantasy books for young adults set in Ancient Egypt. The first in the series, Pharaoh's Gold, is now available to download at Amazon